Homeland Recap: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

This week in the penultimate episode of Homeland Season 2, Carrie followed another hunch as Nazir played a killer game of hide-and-seek, Brody dealt with loss and Saul was put to the test.

TO TELL THE TRUTH | Picking up right where last week left off, Carrie is skulking around inside the dark mill when she sees a figure — Nazir? — down the hall. She chases after him only to emerge outside and be met by Quinn and the FBI TAC teams. Carrie insists Nazir is still inside, while Quinn asks about how she “escaped” while giving her the “news” on Walden’s death via hacked pacemaker. Carrie then rings Brody at the Posh Safehouse 3000, where he’s listening to Jess lament how “It’s all changed now…. Everything.” After he and Carrie briefly wonder what Nazir will say, upon capture, about the Walden plot/Brody’s “trade,” Brody returns inside to be met by first a cold stare, then tears, from Jessica.

Over at Langley, Saul is subject to a polygraph test about, no, not his excessive use of office supplies, but whether he “provided the weapon” Aileen Morgan used to kill herself. Seeing through the sham, Saul says, “If Estes wants to frame me… go ahead and try. This is really about the plan to assassinate a United States congressman once Nazir is out of the picture. Ask me about that.”

HOLY MOLE-Y…? | At the mill, Quinn reports that none of the TAC teams found anyone inside — a verdict Carrie will not accept. “He must’ve had help” to escape, she suggests, and within an instant, all eyes are on the suddenly MIA — and Muslim — Galvez. Intercepting and then pinning down the wounded CIA wonk at a blockade, Carrie grills him about Nazir, but they’ve got the wrong guy. His car is empty, and Galvez was merely splitting to get some opened stitches tended to.

The next morning at the safehouse, they’re out of milk and, dammit, that is the last straw for Dana. Even worse? Jess returns with new but leaky milk, which Dana promptly lobs at the floor. What is this really about, if not crying over spilt milk? “What are we doing here?! Why don’t you go live with that crazy woman?!” Dana hurls at her dad. “We were better off with Mike! He was a better father figure than you ever were!”

Ouch.

BETTER CALL SAUL | Estes has Roya brought in for interrogation by Quinn, but Carrie instead waltzes right on in and makes a run at the turncoat, positing that she, unlike Nazir, must care about innocent casualties, that a part of her must have been relieved when the naval base bombing was thwarted. Roya appears to come around some, asking Carrie, “Have you ever had someone who somehow takes over your life, pulls you in and gets you to do things that are not really you? Do you have anyone like that?” Rather than respond, “Um, do you watch Showtime every Sunday night?” Carrie simply nods. Roya then lets show her true colors and snarls back, “Well… I’ve never been that stupid! You idiot whore! You think this is some game?!” Quinn races in to pull the Arabic-spouting madwoman off Carrie, then sends his colleague home.

Meanwhile, Estes gets the report from the polygraph guy — that “there’s enough there to do what you want” with regards to Saul. Poly guy adds that Saul went on some rant about “an assassination plot” against a congressman, but he said he’d chalk that “truth” up as an anomaly. Estes brings the results to Saul, saying he is fed up with being perpetually undermined and being lampooned on Saturday Night Live. “I want you gone,” he growls, and the exit story is up to Saul.

NO EASY DAY | Heading home, Carrie is bothered by something Roya shouted in Arabic, that Nazir “wouldn’t run.” She makes a beeline for the mill and convinces a straggler TAC team to give the tunnels a final sweep. Carrie and the guy she’s paired with find a suspicious wall, and behind it an egress. The FBI dude ventures inside and finds proof that someone has been hiding there. As Carrie goes to fetch the rest of the TAC team, her guy gets his throat slit, and a cat-and-mouse game ensues between her and Nazir. Nazir ultimately sneaks up behind Carrie, slugs her and throws her around, then makes a run for it, only to be cornered by the pokey TAC team. The moment Nazir reaches for something, they shoot him down dead, in his dungarees.

Outside, Estes offers Carrie the faintest of praise — “Good work,” no exclamation point — for capturing Earth’s Most Wanted. He then privately tells Quinn that he wants Brody handled ASAP. At the safehouse, Secret Service agent Mendez tells Brody and the fam about Nazir, but Brody fails to offer up the “Hooray!” everyone was expecting. Returning to their house, Brody and Jess have a prolonged, private moment in their car.

LOVE AND LOSS | “I don’t want to fight anymore,” Jess starts, when Brody can’t bring himself to go inside the house. “We were OK for so long… Since we were 16. We were so OK.” She asks if it was Mike that drove them apart. Brody shakes his head no. “I really tried,” Jess says. “I wish I was able to give you what you needed when you got back.” Brody maintains there was nothing anyone could have done, says it was even beyond his grasp. Brody begins to tell Jess the truth about the day Carrie ran to their house accusing him of horrible things. Jess interrupts, “Not now. For the longest time, I wanted the truth. I don’t have to know anymore. I don’t want to.”

“Carrie knows everything about you. She accepts you,” Jess states-slash asks. “You must love her a lot.” And on that note, as Jess lets go of Brody’s hand, their marriage effectively ends, and Jess climbs out of the car.

Later, Brody shows up at Carrie’s, where he explains, “What I did…. It was you or Walden.” Caressing her face, he says, “It wasn’t even close,” and they retreat inside… as Quinn watches from the street.

What did you think of this week’s Homeland? Any guesses to what next Sunday’s season finale will entail? Quinn’s bid to snuff Brody and Saul’s next move? And if Galvez isn’t the mole, who is?